Page 49 of Surprised By Her

I walked over to the side of the road and picked two dandelions.

“Rub it under your chin,” I said, doing the same. Ryan stared at me in confusion.

“Just do it,” I said.

She did and I got up on my tiptoes to inspect it.

“Yup, it’s true. How’s mine?” I asked, tipping my head up.

“What am I looking for?” she asked.

“Is my chin yellow?” I asked.

“Yes?”

“Good.”

I started walking again.

“What does yellow chin mean?” she asked.

I grabbed some more flowers. Daisies and black-eyed Susans and some other flowers I didn’t know the names of.

“You want to know what it means?” I asked, presenting Ryan with the bouquet.

“Yes,” she said, taking the flowers from me.

I leaned close to her and kissed her softly.

“It means you like butter,” I said.

“What?” she asked.

“It means you like butter,” I said. “Do you like butter?”

She kissed me back. “I do.”

“What now?” Ryan asked when we got back to the house.

“Oh, am I in charge of this now?” I asked as she filled a vase with water and put the wildflowers in it, setting them in the center of the kitchen island.

“You have better ideas than I do,” she said, bracing her forearms on the countertop.

“Okay. Are you hungry?” I asked. The snack hadn’t been that long ago, but it was lunchtime.

“I’m always hungry, Everly. Literally always.”

“Okay. Lunch. Lunch, and we’re going to find something really pointless on TV and watch it while we eat.”

Ryan nodded. “Okay.”

“Are you still avoiding your phone?” Ryan asked as we lounged together on the couch.

“Yup. I’m sure it’s traumatized by how many messages my parents have sent wondering when the hell I’m coming home.” I made a face. “I should probably check it just to make sure there isn’t any kind of emergency.”

I made a face and went to get my phone from the bedroom.

As I suspected, there were a flurry of messages from my parents that I ended up ignoring, a funny meme from Sydney, and that was about it. The lack of messages from people other than my parents might have made me a little depressed under normal circumstances, but right now, I was hanging out with Ryan Jewel. Nothing could bother me right now.

---